St. Petersburg’s Grand Prix has occupied the same footprint for 22 years, transforming a stretch of downtown waterfront into a temporary racing city every late February. The pit lane grandstands have just started going up at Albert Whitted Airport and the track build begins today. The week before the race, sponsors erect hospitality suites, the haulers arrive, and IndyCar pulls in to transform the Dali Museum and Mahaffey Theater parking lots into a working paddock and the functional heart of race weekend.
That may all change soon, leaving the Firestone St. Petersburg Grand Prix without a base of operations. The City of St. Pete is planning a Center for the Arts that would demolish the garage and parking lot the race depends on, replacing them with greenspace, promenade, and cultural facilities. When consultants from ASD | Sky presented their proposal to the Economic and Workforce Development Committee last December, they included language about “establishing a dedicated paddock area for the St. Petersburg Grand Prix,” but offered nothing about where that area might be located or how it would function.
Read the story in the spring issue of Speedwell Magazine
